Now Available: T-Mobile starts to directly sell the Nokia Lumia 521 for just $149.99

The wait is over: you can now order up a brand new Nokia Lumia 521 direct from T-Mobile. The cost of the device is of course exceptionally low, coming in at just $29 down payment and just $5 a month for your two-year…errr…non-contract with T-Mobile. Feeling lavish? Then you can just buy the phone outright for a mere $150, which last we checked is damn low for a brand new smartphone in 2013.

The Lumia 521 from Nokia is a custom variant of the Lumia 520, comes in white and sports a dual-core 1GHz CPU, 4” LCD display, 512MB of RAM and a 5MP rear shooter. While you give up things like NFC, wireless charging, a front-facing camera and the ability to play a handful of games, you do get a solid smartphone running Windows Phone 8 and Nokia’s excellent navigation software and app selection.

Nokia told us that devices like the Lumia 505 (South America) and the Lumia 520 are selling exceptionally well and we’ve seen the Lumia 521 sell out on HSN and Walmart in their exclusive pre-sale deal,, which evidently ends today. Will the trend continue? We think so.

And yes, our Lumia 521 is due today or tomorrow, so if you want a quick video tour of the device, stay tuned. In the meantime, who’s picking one up?

Reader comments

Now Available: T-Mobile starts to directly sell the Nokia Lumia 521 for just $149.99

Though I'd probably would never use this as a daily driver, I'm seriously considering picking one up to use as a developer phone. At such a low price, it's hard to resisit. I can never have too many developer phones. :)

Did you notice at 1:21, there's another phone in the back (actually looks like the 925 but with a yellow charging case) with the Windows logo flashing.
Wonder if that's the camera's fault or there's another feature that everybody is missing.

It must have been the way the light hits the phone and its refelctive surface.
They really need to add that feature though. The windows logo or the the flash should alert you to notifications like the iphone. It really is a great feature.

You do know you're still gonna have the last item you mentioned. There's more and more games this phone can't handle. Just know that going in. I see a lot of people complaining about not being able to play certain games. That's the consequences of buying a budget phone.

from what I comprehended, he got another 920. The reason for his comment is to reply to
Walter1832: [reasons to replace phone] "I can't get new apps or play games on my WP 7.x"
If your reason is this, you can get an even better phone by using the exuse to get an early upgrade.

That is stupid on t-mobile. It looks like they are selling it for $200 instead of the $130 or $150. Do you know if they price match. This wouldn't matter if walmart was selling it at that price for only a month or two.

It rings out at $180 unless you have a regular plan, or if your refilling at least a $50 coupon on prepaid. All the phones are like that. It's $30 down and $5/mth for well qualified customers, $90 down and $2.50/mth unwell qualified (ie deposit customers unless they have been with us more than 2 yrs). Add $10 for SIM starter if activating.

It's 150 with a plan, and 199 without a plan direct from T-Mobile's website. You can get it (if you can find it) for 129 from Walmart, or as low as 105 from the Microsoft store if you take the Bing it on Challenge, and get them to price match Walmart (though it seems price matching is very YMMV.) It also looks like Best Buy is soon going to stock it, and they'll for sure match the 129 Walmart price. So there's better pricing to be had on this by a lot.

You can get $10 discount right away by signing up for notification for pre-order of Xbox one (see yesterday's article). That would make it $139. $10 more than Walmart but seems sold out in most places.

I got a white one from WalMart last week and I must say, it is absolutely gorgeous. I had been holding on to my HD7, waiting for T-Mobile to get their "flagship" but the poor thing finally gave out. Battery life is great for me. I usually have about 50% left at night after a normal day of browsing the web and playing a few games (probably 30-60 minutes total). My HD7 would be dead after that. I will definitely keep this as a backup for my wife and I once we get our 925s.

I am probably going to pick up two of them for each of my children - great little time-wasters for them on long trips and they'll have access to my Xbox Live games.
I will wait for the review before purchasing, however.

Yeah, I just kept checking the website like twice a day. I think it was on Monday, that I finally saw it available, so I ordered it quick for store pickup. I see it must have sold out again already. I sure hope this means the 521 is a sleeper hit and not just low production stock from Nokia.

Got mine (Ahem.. for my mom ;) ) from HSN on May 10th... Have been using it on and off since then... It's an awesome phone...great for the price and with NOKia music, Here transit and all, it's a great bang for the price you pay....And the camera is not bad either (takes good pics on a sunny day and average ones on cloudy ones). It's a 5 megapixel cam -minus flash.. come on! for $150 with Windowsphone8....it's a great phone

Pros-
Great Daylight pictures
Great sound. I was playing music and it could be heard across the room with no problem.
Looks good
Very good price(especially considering T Mobile's new pricing strategy)
Nice screen
good battery life
easy connectivity to my computer(Windows 7) through USB cord(included in box).

Cons
Lock screen takes several tries before getting out of the way.
I don't like the way email is displayed.
I kept having problems with having to reenter passwords for email accounts.
lack of good apps: Would have liked a good stock quote app(like CNBC)no local news apps at all for a major city(Atlanta), No American Express, No Yahoo Mail(yeah I know that it can be configured in the Email section, But it didn't look or work great),
Sharing Photos should be easier
I realize that these are minor cons, but I guess that I am used to my Android.
Funny thing--the only thing that I did not test my phone for was.......being a phone. To make calls I would have had to switch my Premium Android plan to one of the new ones. I was not ready tto loose my unlimited data unless I was sure. I still may go back to the 521. I will give it a weeks or 2 and see what happens. Also waiting to see what the 925 sells for.